


Exploring The Inner Person

by Basmathgirl



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Homosexuality, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-08 16:23:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11085375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Basmathgirl/pseuds/Basmathgirl
Summary: What if the Doctor didn’t only remove his memories from Donna because of some special bond between her and Handy? His duplicate lost much of his inner Doctor and his memories. That left him with a hearty dollop of Donna-ness to live with instead.The sequel toThe Inner Person.





	Exploring The Inner Person

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** I don’t own these and sadly never will, but at least I now have my own Tentoo; thanks to a generous birthday present from [some-thrilling-heroics](http://some-thrilling-heroics.tumblr.com).  
>  **A/N:** I’m posting this because [blackbetsirose](http://archiveofourown.org/users/blackbetsirose) encouraged me to, otherwise it would have stayed on my hard drive. This way I will have to finally finish it.  
>  **A/N2:** I have been accused of being homophobic and using a harmful trope here, but since I am not homosexual it is not for me to judge whether this is true or not. Since this was said quite rudely I have not changed or deleted this; instead, I have taken the rare (and unwanted) step of locking this fic instead. (updated 7th June 2017)

“What are you doing this weekend, Don?” Rose had asked him in a kindly tone one Saturday morning at breakfast.

“Oh, erm, I might meet up with a new friend,” he had answered cagily. “I’m not sure yet.”

“Got your eye on a new bloke?” Jackie had wondered, peeping mischievously at him from over the top rim of her mug of tea.

It didn’t help his sensibilities that he immediately blushed. “Something like that,” he admitted.

“Then I’ll try not to cramp your style,” Rose had promised, much to his relief.

For some reason he wanted to keep this to himself for the time being. It all felt too precious, and he feared that they would laugh at him. Sneaking out of the Tyler mansion before anyone could ask any more questions, Don ‘accidentally’ returned to the same Starbucks as from the Saturday before, knowing she would be there, the alternate universe’s version of Donna Noble. 

Well, it meant that he got to share a table with his new friend after she had completed her shopping. It also meant that she probably knew he had deliberately run into her as she ordered her coffee. 

“Hello. Fancy seeing you here,” Donna had pleasantly trilled when she’d turned from ordering her coffee from the barista and seen him sitting all expectant, with a spare stool to his side. “Anyone would think you had been waiting for me.”

“Would they?” Don had tried to feign ignorance, and patted the seat in invitation. “But now that you’re here, and since I saved this stool specially, why don’t you come and join me? I could do with some company.” 

She smiled knowingly as she made her way over to sit with him. “Careful, people will think you fancy me,” she playfully warned as she sat down and arranged her bags. His immediate blush made her laugh.

“I don’t… I wasn’t… I didn’t mean…,” he blustered, much to her amusement. “Not that I’m saying you’re not…”

“I’m only teasing,” she confirmed with a friendly pat to his arm. “But I won’t stop you from buying us another coffee later on.”

He spent the rest of the afternoon pleasantly chatting with Donna, learning about the life she had led in the alternate universe, and all the things she felt she had failed in. He knew better than to try and offer her solutions to her problems; evidently other people had tried and not succeeded in that respect. Instead, he listened carefully, storing it all away, and sympathised in all the right places. 

In return, he engaged her with his tale of being frightened to ‘come out’, relating that he had a pseudo-girlfriend at the time and describing how different it all felt without any real family to cushion the blow even though the Tylers had done their very best to help him. All of this was listened to with politeness and acceptance. Inevitably she asked what had happened to his family.

“As far as I know they’re all dead and gone,” he said simply, which for the most part was true. 

All of his research had failed to drum up any surviving relatives after the Cybermen disaster. None of them had actually been his relatives, not ones he had ever physically seen or touched, but it hurt on a level he didn’t want to admit to; and what he did have were no longer available in that universe. Yes, he couldn’t deny the fact that he was feeling all alone.

Tears welled up in her eyes, and Donna immediately reached out and placed a hand on his arm in order to offer her sympathies. “That’s terrible, to lose your parents in an accident and you to lose so much of your life.”

Trying to appear brave, he shrugged defensively and dipped his head. “No more than anyone else and I’m getting used to it; but I see them everywhere I go,” he admitted in a small voice and then peeked up at her. There wasn’t much about this Donna that was different from the one he knew intimately, and he yearned to gain a proper sense of belonging. “In a way you remind me of her… my mother, I mean.”

Getting a sense that he wanted to talk about his loss, she risked a question or two. “What did your parents do, if you don’t mind me asking? Do you take after them at all?”

Did he?! It was almost too tempting to shout the confirmation loudly. Instead, he smiled shyly. “Dad was amazing, to be honest. There wasn’t much he didn’t know or could do; and he was often called in as a political or technical consultant when things went wrong. Mum thought he was dazzling from the very start.” He then leaned in conspiratorially to add, “Not that she would have told him that in a million years! She loved popping the bubble of his ego and bringing him down to earth.”

Donna freely laughed at that. “I get the impression I would have loved her.”

“I think you would,” he agreed, nodding. “Other people often found her too loud or far too funny for a woman, and never bothered to look beneath the surface. But that was just a persona she built up after years of having to fit in loads of places. Luckily, Dad had quickly seen through it.”

“It does make you that way,” she sympathised, using her own personal experience. “What about you?”

“Me?” he queried, sitting back in his seat to give his neck a self-comforting rub. “I’m a mixture of both, as you’d expect; except I look just like my dad and behave more like my mum. I’ve grown to think more like her too.”

“What do you think she would have said about you being gay?” Donna wondered, since he seemed to be warming to this subject. 

The question gained a chuckle. “In all honesty, I don’t think she would have minded at all. As for Dad…?” He thoughtfully sucked in his teeth. “No, I don’t think he would have been too upset. They weren’t the ‘you have to provide us with grandchildren’ sort of parents.”

“Then why didn’t you tell them?” she softly asked.

Oh dear! How should he answer this one? “I thought I was straight, right up to and including kissing the girlfriend Dad approved of, but it soon went wrong. I could be bi, I suppose. I… I dunno. I can’t blame grief, but losing them suddenly made it clear in my head. I didn’t want Rose, not like that. The thought of taking it further made me…” He visibly shuddered in horror at the thought. 

“Hang on,” Donna considered as she thought over his words. “Are you saying you never had sex with her?”

He shook his head. “I never did anything more than kiss her the once, and she started it.”

That was a surprise. “What about before that?”

There was more shaking of his head. “I hadn’t touched another woman like that; or man. Is that weird?”

“Just a bit if you are saying you’re a virgin,” she quipped, and then changed her tone when his face flushed with guilt. “You’re a virgin? But how can you not have had someone. I mean. Look at you! There must have been dozens of offers.”

Embarrassment raged through him now, and he hung his head low. He felt it best not to mention the blowjob incident. “In my defence, I was a bit of a late developer. I had this… _thing_. This terrible condition; caused by an accidental fall from a great height. A physical disability that stopped me from interacting with the world. You know, keeping out of sight and by myself most of the time; silent in my box-like world. Most of the time I couldn’t communicate much beyond twitching, continually prodded and poked by doctors for a while, locked away in my own little world. Not that my parents ever abused me or anything, I hasten to add; they just accepted that I couldn’t do much but react.”

“Oh my gawd! So you were severely physically handicapped,” Donna stated more than queried. “Did you find some miracle cure?”

“Yes, sort of,” he brightly confirmed. “It was all Dad’s doing, to start with; it almost killed him and hurt like hell. But it was Mum that gave me the final push I needed to start living in the real world; doing things like walking and talking. You know, like normal people.” 

“That can’t have been easy, for any of you,” she sympathised, unable to comprehend his inhibited and limited life, let alone the battle towards normality. “Were you conscious of the world around you?”

“Very much so,” he replied, finding his thoughts darkening. “I don’t like to think about all that. I could do hardly anything in my paralysed state. Although there was that time I helped them find my…” The last few words were lost in a mumble.

Leaning in close, she inevitably asked, “What did you find?”

Clearing his throat, Don muttered sadly, “My sister. Jenny. She er… she… Oh God, this sounds awful!”

“Just take your time saying it. There’s no hurry,” Donna gently reminded him, reaching over to place a hand over his on the table top. “You can tell me another day if it’s too hard for you to say.”

“But I need to,” he insisted through gritted teeth. “Otherwise it festers and destroys your very soul.” The words hung heavy in the air between them, underlining the hidden confession. “Me and her shared a special link; I could feel where she was, so I could indicate to Dad where to look. She was sort of abducted by a cult of these military nut jobs, got brainwashed into thinking their way. And when Dad found her, the leader got all arsy, and he… 

“Did what?” Donna gently pushed for information when his face fell.

“The leader, called himself a colonel,” Don dismissed him with a sneer, “aimed his gun at Dad and managed to shoot Jenny instead. She died almost instantly.” 

There was a sympathetic gasp. “Oh Don!” 

“Yes. Well,” he stated, wiping desperately at his eyes to clear it all away from his mind. “At least it was quick, I suppose. But it didn’t help my relationship with them very much.”

“That’s survivors’ guilt you’re suffering,” she remarked. “How long ago did this happen?”

“Only a few months before everything else,” he vaguely answered, not wanting to give details and knowing he’d get away with it. “So there you have it; my little tale of angst.”

“To think that your parents lost their daughter just as they had properly regained you. Doesn’t bear thinking about. Life is very cruel,” she commented.

“True; but we all get a second chance,” he declared, trying to lighten the mood. “Who knows; you might have just met the most important person in your life.”

“You what?!” she shrieked indignantly, overwhelmed by his cheekiness. “Nobody could accuse you of lacking in the modesty stakes. Most important person indeed! Next you’ll be telling me you rode up in shining armour on a white horse and will be whisking me away.”

“Well, we _did_ own a white horse once. His name was Arthur,” he teased. “I can’t say I own any armour, unless a suit counts, but I’d whisk you away in a second, if I was that way inclined.”

She eyed him suspiciously despite being pleased by his words. “It’s a good job you’re not, because I’m married.”

“Oh yes, you mentioned him before. The bloke who doesn’t appreciate decent t-shirts when he sees one.” He smiled encouragingly at her. “What else should I know about him?”

She laughed. “That he’s daft as a brush for marrying me.”

“No, honestly, I want to know about you and him,” Don encouraged her to talk. “How did you meet?”

Her eyes lifted up to the left as she considered this question. “We met at work, by the coffee machine one day. Lance is head of his department and good looking. I dunno why he chose to marry me; I suppose I must have badgered him into it. We’ve been together almost three years now.”

Don nodded, easily able to agree to this idea. “And any family yet?”

“No,” she sadly answered. “I’d love children but it hasn’t happened. Plus, we can’t afford it.”

“Can’t afford children?” he wondered. “But you said he is head of department. Are you supporting lots of dependent relatives or something?”

“Nothing like that,” she cagily replied. “The Cybermen took most of his family, and there wasn’t much of mine to start with. No. He deals with his grief by…” Her head tilted downwards as she murmured, “This is so shaming. He tends to gamble rather a lot.”

“Oh!” Don gasped out sympathetically. “Now that would tend to eat up all your money.”

“Tell me about it,” she muttered, and then looked up at the clock on the wall. “Oh my goodness! Look at the time. We’ve been sitting here for hours!”

“Time flies when you’re having fun,” he retorted. “Despite all the woe, I have enjoyed talking to you.” Which he genuinely had. It felt like a great weight had been lifted from him. 

“And me you,” she readily agreed. “I often come in here if you fancy doing this again one lunchtime.”

“Definitely,” he happily approved. “I’m starting a new temp position on Monday, just around the corner, while I resist that Torchwood job.”

“Really? I’m across the road this week. As for that Torchwood job, I still think you should consider it,” she advised him. “I don’t understand what’s holding you back. I’d even work there myself if the opportunity arose.”

“I tell you what; if I go there I’ll arrange a job for you there as well. How does that sound?” he offered.

“You are too cute for your good,” she cried. “I might hold you to that promise.”

“Just meet me on Monday and we’ll go from there,” he suggested; to their mutual benefit.


End file.
